Slashdot Mirror
Renewable Energy Set To Be Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels By 2020, Says Report (independent.co.uk)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Independent: Continuous technological improvements have led to a rapid fall in the cost of renewable energy in recent years, meaning some forms can already comfortably compete with fossil fuels. The report suggests this trend will continue, and that by 2020 "all the renewable power generation technologies that are now in commercial use are expected to fall within the fossil fuel-fired cost range." Of those technologies, most will either be at the lower end of the cost range or actually undercutting fossil fuels. "This new dynamic signals a significant shift in the energy paradigm," said Adnan Amin, director-general of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IREA), which published the report. "Turning to renewables for new power generation is not simply an environmentally conscious decision, it is now -- overwhelmingly -- a smart economic one." The report looked specifically at the relative cost of new energy projects being commissioned. As renewable energy becomes cheaper, consumers will benefit from investment in green infrastructure. The current cost for fossil fuel power generation ranges from around 4p to 12p per kilowatt hour across G20 countries. By 2020, IREA predicted renewables will cost between 2p and 7p, with the best onshore wind and solar photovoltaic projects expected to deliver electricity by 2p or less next year.
You just left out most of the costs of fossil fuels!
What, objectively, is the full cost of fossil fuels?
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
when the US and the rest of the world loses collective interest in the middle east? Saudi Arabia is just now trying to figure out how to modernize their country when the price of oil collapses. They're desperately trying to get women into the economy because their current social system isn't compatible with the kinds of two income families countries want/need to maintain the growth/profit margins they're used to.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
If you factor in the long-term effects of continued fossil fuel use on health and the environment in general then it's already far less expensive to use renewables.
You are referring to the uber-nutjobs commonly referred to as "Dominionists". For a soft-core preview of what a Dominionist-run country would be like, try reading The Handmaids Tale -- but the reality of a Dominionist world would be orders of magnitude worse, I assure you. Try reading up on it, but don't blame me if you have digestion issues and anxiety problems over it for a while.
We can also get rid of giveaways like net metering while at it.
Instead of propping up the coal industry how about that money be spent educating and training displaced coal miners so they can work in the solar industry? They'll have jobs and I'm sure they'll be much happier every day working above ground instead of dark dangerous mines.
Even with a bit higher capital costs between sources when you have to compete against an essentially zero fuel cost you are bound to fail.
If I were making big bets today, I would be looking for a few narrow canyons I cold buy to put in some pumped hydro. That type of base storage is where the next gold rush will be found. Cool thing about pulped hydro is that you can reuse the water over and over.
I also remember hearing about some group looking into reusing old mine railways as they tend to be steeper than commercial rail. They were going to put loaded cars with an electric engine/generator to act as gravity storage. Who says those old coal mines can't produce (or at least store) clean energy
If the claimed problem is that many things have been left out of the calculation, the response would be first to look into what those things are, rather than jumping straight to demanding a corrected final result.
I suspect you're not asking in good faith, due to the absurdity of the way you phrase the question.
But if you were just being lazy, then I'll spoon feed you the search term: "fossil fuel externalities." That will return your years and years worth of reading materials on the subject, and you can very quickly find out if the orders of magnitude of the external costs justify conclusions about the relative costs even without having precise "objective" numbers.
Also, please note that that isn't really what "objective" means. Perhaps you meant something different, like "unbiased." Using the philosophy definitions of the terms, figuring out the costs after including externalities is clearly subjective. Using common English definitions, neither is relevant until you're making an actual accusation of bias.
The problem is the cost of storage. Renewables are intermittent meaning we need storage or baseload backup. 96% of our current storage is done thru pumped hydro. All of our current storage will last less then a hour. It is not feasible to scale that up to a 100% percent renewable grid. Batteries are even more expensive and less feasible for grid level storage.
Given the realities of climate change, it is immoral to oppose nuclear power
... by 2020 "all the renewable power generation technologies that are now in commercial use are expected to fall within the fossil fuel-fired cost range." [and will continue to drop below them] ... "Turning to renewables for new power generation is not simply an environmentally conscious decision, it is now -- overwhelmingly -- a smart economic one."
THIS is how The Invisible Hand eliminates greenhouse gas emissions. B-)
Cost of renewable energy collection drops as tech advances.
* Solar photovoltaic, in particular, benefits from semiconductor tech.
* Control and conversion IS semiconductor tech, with all the Moore's Law benefits.
* Storage rides the battery advances driven by things like laptops and electric cars.
Cost of grid generation may benefit some from tech, but it's mostly mature and advances slower.
Meanwhile, cost of fossil fuels continues to climb as the easy stuff gets used up - while renewables (if you already occupy a good site) pretty much don't HAVE ongoing fuel costs.
As the cost passes crossover in progressively more locations, renewables will first take up new loads, then (as the second crossover is passed similarly and it becomes cheaper to switch than not), displace existing fossil fuel generation.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You just left out most of the costs of fossil fuels!
Why worry about that?
When the DIRECT cost passes the crossovers, renewables first take up the new loads, then displace fossil fuels for old ones.
So you don't NEED government hacks to map the indirect costs into the market (and provide massive opportunities for graft and rent-seeking). The UN-hidden costs are enough to drive the market.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Net metering is no giveaway, anyone that claims as such has no idea about the matter.
>"Renewable Energy Set To Be Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels By 2020"
Or we figure out effective fusion, finally, and all our problems with energy and everything related to it just go "poof"! Energy related nation conflict, emissions, waste, land use, most of the danger, most of the cost, supply issues, many of the grid issues, could all quickly disappear.
OK, so I am living in a dream world. But it COULD happen.... based on how long it has already taken, probably not by 2020, unfortunately.
Oil is rarely used for electricity generation. In 15 out of the top 20 energy generating countries, it is less than 5% of the electricity fuel mix.
Remove fossil oil, and relation between nations change. Saudis will be obvious loosers. I wonder if Russia's economy is diverse enough to avoid collapse. And without oil, US interest for middle east vanish, will US Israel support too?
The people worried about carbon emissions are just not realizing the huge downturn in output we'll see over the next few decades. They are worried about what things might be lime in 100 years when within 50 we'll have a massive drop in CO2 output.
Instead they should be focusing on real pollution which has a far larger lifespan in the environment than CO2...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Subsidies will flow onto the batteries and storage needed to keep the grid up when the wind stops and its night time.
If batteries are not counted as "renewable" then such subsidies can keep flowing every utility bill.
e.g. "renewable" is not getting a direct subsidies but the new battery network all over a state, nation is.
Every habitual structure has to get inspected, be grid connected and has to pay for grid connection every year.
So the claim of no subsidies can be presented but the utility bill price of getting and using renewable electricity remains every year.
Profit taking, new batteries, profits for installing the batteries, to look after the batteries, to replace the batteries, to install the next generation of batteries.
The new diesel and gas generators needed to keep the grid working and cover for battery, wind and solar grid fluctuations.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Cost curves of fuel vs. electric just intersected roughly 10 weeks ago in late 2017. Note: That is cost for electric going down, like pretty steep. And that's with *todays* electric vehicles, with shitty batteries and no economics of scale. Experts expect ICEs to be basically gone in 10 years, simply by economics alone. Some say in roughly 5 years from now people will start paying for someone to take their ICEs, so bad will be their feasibility vs. EVs. The private owned ICE car industry is in for an equivalent of a long-running carpet bombing, late WW2 in Germany style. Prepare for incoming.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
You just left out most of the costs of fossil fuels!
You just left out most of the costs of fossil fuels!
http://lamrangthammy.vn/tay-tr...
Why care about wind energy first? Don't you have better priorities?
Ezekiel 23:20
Probably because you got these "details" by means of rectal extraction?
Ezekiel 23:20
Sure, as long as you end all energy subsidies, otherwise the argument doesn't make sense. And while you at it, internalize the externalities.
Ezekiel 23:20
Fossil fuels are most common in a few countries. That means odds are you have to go somewhere else to get them unless your country happens to be one of the lucky ones. There's a long history of nasty wars fought over oil. And those wars are _expensive_. The Iraq war's final bill is going to be around $7 trillion with a 'T'. Afghanistan is going to be around $3 trillion.
Then there's pollution. Even if you pretend climate change is a Chinese hoax smog isn't. Asthma, lung cancer, respiratory & heart disease are all exacerbated and in some cases outright caused by burning Fossil Fuels. And if you're using leaded gas you can add sever mental problems to that list.
Then there's the massive subsidies and tax breaks oil companies get. Yeah, yeah, renewables get them too. But it's still part of the cost of oil. Plus oil spills and their clean up. And the cost of shipping the stuff. The list goes on and on, but the first two I cited are the big ones because they're the ones that aren't part of the direct cost and therefor aren't obvious and/or counted.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
They're scarier because they're getting appointed (not elected, appointed) to government posts. Like Betsy DeVos.
The problem is, carrier-scale Hydro is a no-go in the US. They've already passed peak Hydro. And while micro-hydro will make up SOME difference, it won't make up THAT much.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
cost of oil, coal and such is dictated at the moment by market factors - what kind of money can you get by selling it. basically what this means is that if demand goes down they can sell it for cheaper than they are selling it at now.. also for the same reason price of oil will never(in our life) double, since at that point making alternative liquid from coal would be profitable.
anyhow, if it's going to go so low in just two years what kind of an idiot would buy solar _now_ ?
anyhow coal is cheap for the chinese because they have it already. pretty fucking hard to compete with that on price alone.
aanyhow.. would maybe be interesting to read how they projected the costs, how long they assume the solar installation is running without replacing it, since you could tweak those projections to half the energy cost(over lifetime of the plant) quite easily, but then you get to things like interest rate on the invested money and so on.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Hence the focus on actual costs. Not nuts.
Even more important than "renewable" energy is diversity of energy sources. Every source of energy has its drawbacks:
- Hydroelectric dams are "renewable" and fossil-free. But they disrupt river life.
- Wind farms kill birds and (in some people's view) ruin landscapes.
- Nuclear energy creates waste products that are very, very hard to safely dispose of, and create risks of leaking in natural disasters.
- Solar energy farms require a lot of land, and endanger and displace wildlife.
- Tidal-powered turbines kill marine life.
Any energy source, if replicated at extremely large scales, will have major undesirable side effects. If instead we have a wide array of sources, each one's negative impacts won't be as widespread.
Just like with investing money...don't put all your eggs in one basket.
And they left out 2 trillion dollars for a war in iraq over oil.
And they left out 4,000 dead for a war over oil.
And they left out ongoing military capability required to fight a war in that region plus the cost of stationing thousands of troops.
And they left out the nearly trillion dollar subsidy to coal by allowing it to dig up coal for below market rates on federal lands.
And so on.
The subsidies for fossil fuel are woven so deep they don't even look like subsidies any more (like special accounting laws only used by the fossil fuel industry that save them billions of dollars per year).
And the ongoing incalculable health care and productivity costs for everyone who grew up inhaling lead from gasoline.
Alternative enegy isn't pollution free. But the pollution tends to be concentrated geographically instead of spread all over everywhere.
The point is that alternative energy subsidies are a drop in the bucket compared to fossil fuel subsidies.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Soon even the USA will be forced to put a price on carbon. Once demand begins to dip and fossil fuel prices start to fall, governments will start to increase the carbon pricing to prevent retaking of market share.
I'm sure a ton of people are going to laugh at me saying this, but I suspect those will be the same people who only a year or two ago laughed when the 'nut jobs' claimed renewables were soon going to out-compete fossil fuels at base-load generation on price. We may not be there quite yet everywhere, but by this point, it's clearly only a matter of time.
Pumped Hydro as a storage medium for intermittent sources like solar and wind is a good idea if the costs add up (i.e. the cost for x kWh of Pumped Hydro in a given location is lower than the cost for building something else instead to supply the same power, be that battery storage or whatever)
Not all members of those particular religions are against action on climate change or want to bring about the end of the world. I know people personally who are part of those particular faiths who are very much in favor of cleaning up the planet and stopping climate change.
Not awful logic, but it overlooks quite a few rather important factors
1. Pumped hydro can be cheap, but only if you use it a lot. Today, it is used to store energy generated during periods of low demand (wee hours of the morning) to store energy to be sold back during periods of high demand. That works because such periods occur predictably every day. Try that with things like wind and solar which are intermittent, with seasonal or 3-4 day supply peaks. The pumped storage costs -- which are mostly capital and maintenance --will be higher.
2. You need to pump a lot of water to do pumped storage. Very roughly, you need to lift 1 cubic meter (1 metric tonne) 100 meters to store 1Kwh. There aren't a lot of sites available that have both abundant water and terrain that will support both an upper and a lower pool.
3. Practical pumped storage efficiencies are typically 70% give or take a bit. That's put 4kwh in to get 3kwh back. That can work, but only when the differential between low demand and peak demand is substantial.
4. Capital costs for pumped storage are very high. Investment recovery time is probably decades. Battery technology IS improving, albeit slowly. It could make your facility obsolete before you've pocketed wealth beyond belief ... or even paid off your loans. Likewise, widespread adoption of electric vehicles charged at off hours could reduce the peak load differential that your economics depend on.
Think of pumped storage as a huge battery that comes only in sizes humongous and even bigger. It has a very long lifetime -- decades, maybe centuries. Its self discharge rate (leaks,evaporation) is low.. No memory effects. Can discharge safely to zero (Don't try THAt with say Lion). . But it has rather low charging efficiency (70% give or take). And it can fail catastrophically (dam failure) which will likely be VERY costly.
Oh yes, and it's not all that great environmentally because of constantly varying pool levels -- plan on being sued ... probably repeatedly -- once radical environmentalists figure that out.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
But it's INTEL ONLY!
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
They have already moved past this, you don't need pumped hydro or railroad cars with concrete blocks in the back to store excess energy, you just need a large vertically suspended concrete or lead block that can slowly descend with gearing to a generator, takes up minimal room, can be scaled easily, and is currently being tested!
Just when the fossil fuels are still getting national bonuses, removing renewable national bonuses and the fuels companies buying the technology of renewable companies closing... (All of this is actually happening in Spain right now)
Still the same shit with different wrapper.
I don't think you can use the liberal word to describe those people you're pointing out.
They're authoritarian as fuck, given all the tendencies of wanting the government to control every aspect of your life and wanting to censor speech.
Also, as a right winger, you're probably pro nuclear, that is also a clean energy source.
Says Mr. "I can't tell the difference between sea and land ice" :)
Renewable Energy Set To Be Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels By 2020, Says Report
There are two main sources of fossil fuel consumption, electricity and automobiles. This refers to electricity consumption, in essence replacing old fossil fuel burning power plants with clean, renewable energy. Hooray! Sign me up to get my house outfitted with highly efficient solar shingles. Unfortunately, this doesn't help fossil fuel consumption by automobiles but it's definitely progress in the right direction.
The challenge for climate change will be getting China to consider the alternative
We'll make great pets
You just left out most of the costs of fossil fuels!
What, objectively, is the full cost of fossil fuels?
They also leave out the full cost of renewables, which include massive transmission upgrades and a huge reserve margin cost to handle intermittency.
Are you going to then add in all the side benefits of fossil fuels humans have enjoyed over the years as well? And are there no soft costs from alternative energy sources to consider or is only oil subject to the more rigorous analysis?
"Chart of the month: Driven by Tesla, battery prices cut in half since 2014"
https://thinkprogress.org/char...
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
there is no need to subsidize fossil fuel after 100+ years to get it right but they still do in all sorts of ways
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
thats because you forget the subsidies also given to the fossil fuel industry in various forms for 100+ years
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
What side benefit? Black lung disease? Saves us the cost of providing health care to retired coal miners since they don't live long enough to retire?
People died building the Hoover Dam, that's an inescapable fact.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Serious question what kind of batteries did you use for your solar install. The Tesla batteries which had a bunch of hype and were pushed as being ultra cheap looked to cost the same as the really old Nickle-Iron batteries. Both of which look to do better than deep cycle lead acid on a cost per watt hour. If you used lead acid there isn't much that can be done to increase capacity or decrease costs, especially since those have fairly short lifetimes so effort has gone into increasing those but that adds costs. At this point I would still probably choose Nickle-Iron over lithium ion batteries because of the longevity of Nickle-Iron cells and how they stand up to abuse and neglect.
Time to offend someone
1MWh is is huge battery I've only heard of those being used for grid level storage. Even for a large a 19KWh (48 volts @ 300Ah) storage system you would be looking at about $15,000 which should be a few days if one isn't dumb about usage. That assumes that you didn't build in any additional redundancy into your generation capacity like a couple of those small 700W windmills that aren't that expensive.
Time to offend someone
I don't think you're going to find any reform or conservative Jews who think that, and I doubt you'll find more than a handful of orthodox Jews who do. As for Christians, I've only ever seen that sort of thinking from the fundamentalist sects - who I will grant are the most visible and powerful group of Christians in the US. But Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and Methodists generally do not think that way. As for Muslims, I must admit a fair amount of ignorance, but I doubt that the mainline sects are any more apocalyptic than mainline Jews or Christians.
Sorry, not particularly relevant. That's a particular and relatively out-of-date tech (which is why it's cheaper), and it only breaks even (they don't make a profit) in mass quantities. That's basically the secret to Tesla's success--"lose a bit on every sale, but make it up in volume".....
My stuff was rather more expensive and much smaller lots, unfortunately. It hasn't budged a notch in three years.
I'm very much looking forward to good battery tech, but it would take 5 or 6 Tesla Powerpacks to meet the demands of my system. Things will get better, in time. I'm looking forward to a good electric SUV so I don't have dangly bits to catch every danged rock in the canyon. Once they double the range and cut a zero off that price tag we can start talking I reckon....
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
I got EnergyCell RE high capacity batteries....2300AH/2V per battery. I had to get 24 of them for my 48V system. Having enough for a 60V system WOULD have made for a slightly more efficient system when the DC ran through the inverters to generate AC, but I thought that cost a smidge too much. They're an AGM tech.
There were better and higher amp hour ones from China and Taiwan, but I couldn't make the shipping work. These do work pretty well though; I can (and have) gone four days without any significant sunlight, quite impressive performance.
A friend of mine in town is putting in his Powerwall in March, I think. He uses somewhat less electricity but he's probably going to have a couple of days stored there (haven't really run the numbers yet since it's not there yet). He has just over 10kw of panels (mine are older panels of course, making 8.8kw). We're very excited to see how it works out for him! I think pretty much anybody can/should put panels at least for a grid-tied system....at the very least it lowers your utility bill if nothing else.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Concur.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Oh spare me. The sun is going to be around much longer than humanity. Piss off, you persnickety little pedant.
With the exception of very few regions, and Alaska is not one of them, it's already cheaper in most parts of North America.
If it weren't for massive tax subsidies and tax exemptions for fossil fuels, the market would have already replaced the inefficient fossil fuels with cheaper renewables.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Actually, you're describing the solar cycle. Wind power is strongest at night and weakest in the daytime, which is why balanced renewable systems tend to use a mix of solar and wind with hydro or gas or compressed air storage or battery for shaping.
Which actually tends to match the consumption cycle fairly closely, given the demands from industry and commercial usage and their cycles.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It does, a third of a day for four days a week during a normal summer, but not during the winter months where it provides zilch and just wears down.
Um, I just got a $115 credit for solar generation in the Winter, here in Seattle, so that's obviously untrue.
Fairly certain wind power works most of the year too.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Fossil fuels always have a cost. Wind and solar have unlimited free fuel... forever.
Now that the capital cost of wind and solar have come down, the fact that they run on free fuel means they will take over.
I recently read that only half the coal power plants in the US are breaking even.
Economics will drive fossil fuels out of business. It's just not cost effective to build a fossil fuel plant (even with all the subsidies they receive and considering that they don't have to pay for all of the health and environmental damage they cause).
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I am always interested in what people are doing and how things work for them as eventually I will have an off grid system when I get a cabin built as I don't want to pay to have a line run and for a transformer or have to run, maintain, and fuel a generator. I would be curious to hear how the AGMs hold up under use over the years as for the current application I have for them I haven't seen a good use-case to justify the additional cost (trolling motor battery) so instead just got a larger regular deep cycle battery.
Time to offend someone
Side benefits, like 3 wars in the last 25 years?
at 3 trillion so far?
Oh, so now fossil fuels are responsible for vaccines?
The SINGLE biggest extender of lives in human history.
That would explain the popularity of solar and wind, and also the investment in wave generation.
"Hydro" is not the future, unless you're thinking of the ocean. Certainly freshwater hydro is past its peak in the US, and most places.
Canada might still see future growth in some regions.
It wasn't about oil. We won, we didn't get the oil. We stayed, we still didn't get the oil. We overstayed until it started a new war to drive us out, and we still didn't get the oil.
It clearly had reasons, but hindsight says oil wasn't very high on the list.
Your number one is plain wrong.
Pumped storage is used as balancing power. That has nothing to do with 'price'. After all the company that owns the pumped storage plant also owns the coal plant that fills the storage during the 'wee hours'.
Number 3 is plain wrong too, pumped storage efficiency is above 81%, roughly 90% for the oump and roughly 90% for the turbine.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
How would you prove it isn't renewable? Where does it go after it dies? Where do new stars come from? Is there any connection?
The reason I discount wave generation is the cost to build the generators to marine standards is exorbitant (pretty much on par with building things to aerospace standards).
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Always with the subsidies, mostly because you think any business not taxed into penury is somehow subsidized. And what about the benefits, has anyone calculated the vast amount of wealth created from the use of fossil fuels? Let us imagine fossil fuels were banned after WWII. No trade with China, windjammers don't carry much. No skyscrapers, without coal steel is too expensive. Half of the population would still be on the farm looking at the south end of a north bound mule. No aviation or satellite systems. Not even a steam punk world, the Earth's wood supply replacement is too slow. Paradise? I guess, if you think 1790 was the pinnacle of human existence.
No one was prescient enough to do that. Even now that it is abundantly clear we have to stop using fossil fuels immediately their use actually increases every year. The wars to keep the oil flowing are nothing compared to the wars that will be needed to stop it.
Right, handwaving away a whole category of technology because you only saw early designs that were overpriced.
That's just silly, as is claiming that saltware boat docks have to be built to an equivalent of "aerospace standards." This is no different than other equipment that is operated in the ocean. You're simply ignorant of the wide range of different types of devices that can convert wave energy into electricity. It goes up, down, up, down, this isn't hard. A person who thinks that is inherently expensive is an idiot. It is expensive because anything industrial done on a small scale is expensive. There is nothing complicated about this, it doesn't require expensive materials, and it runs in a mostly automated manner. There is nothing there to make it expensive. Waving yours hands won't work, even if you wear expensive gloves while you do it.
I said "discount", not "eliminate".
And with wave power, we're not talking about "boat docks". We're talking about mechanical systems that have to survive in a living marine environment.
Ask the US Navy about how hard it is keeping submersible equipment functioning in that sort of environment.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Ask the US Navy about how hard it is keeping submersible equipment functioning in that sort of environment.
You'll find out the US Navy does it all the time, they're really good at it.
Also, this isn't theory. There are real devices that exist. No need for imaginary straw men, Chicken Little!
And run down to the ocean and take a look, civilians are operating equipment in the water all day.